


the soft animal of your body

by stammiviktor



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (my new favorite tag), Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Dom Katsuki Yuuri, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Kinky Smangst, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Married Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Post-Canon, Sub Victor Nikiforov, Supportive Katsuki Yuuri, Viktor Has Abandonment Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-12 22:53:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16004987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor
Summary: It happens like this every March, in the run-up to Worlds and the tail-end of winter. Somewhere during the ten-hour days of drills and run-throughs and conditioning, Viktor begins to go numb.Yuuri warms him against his skin, brings back feeling everywhere he touches, but the cold sinks deeper within Viktor than even his husband can go.Viktor and Yuuri have been married a year, living together for three, but are still learning new ways to take care of one another.





	the soft animal of your body

**Author's Note:**

> Rachel ([Chrome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome/works) on ao3 and [catalists](http://http://catalists.tumblr.com/) on tumblr) - I love you dearly, thank you for everything. I felt super self conscious writing this one, and your support and help means so much. 
> 
> The title is from the poem [Wild Geese](http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html) by Mary Oliver (brought to my attention by, you guessed it, Rachel). The full line is: "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

It happens like this every March, in the run-up to Worlds and the tail-end of winter. The sun rises late, sets early, and the air in St. Petersburg turns so frigid and biting it makes the ice rink feel like a sauna. And somewhere in there, somewhere during the ten-hour days of drills and run-throughs and conditioning, Viktor begins to go numb.

It’s better, with Yuuri. Everything, invariably, is better with Yuuri. This is their third Russian winter, their first with engagement _and_ wedding rings wrapped around their fingers. In a few weeks will be their third World Championships skating on the same ice. They’re bringing back the Stammi Vicino Duetto for the exhibition. They’ve been practicing new lifts for months.

But it’s there, the numbness, settling in the corners of Viktor’s mind and at the tips of his fingers and toes. Yuuri warms him against his skin, brings back feeling everywhere he touches, but the cold sinks deeper within Viktor than even his husband can go.

In the past, this was good—or not bad, at least. Numb, Viktor could force himself through spin after spin, jump after jump until his feet were bruised and his body on the verge of collapse and not feel a _thing._ No matter how effortless his performances appeared, you don’t become a six-time World Champion without ruthless sacrifice, and in the weeks before Worlds, Viktor is relentless.

Yakov knows the drill. Yuuri knows the drill. By now everyone knows what to expect, what to do, when to be patient and where to be firm. Yakov makes him take rest days. Yuuri makes him two servings of steamed chicken at dinner. Yura refrains from teasing about his hairline.

There’s one difference though, about this year, that makes the cold sink deeper and the determination set heavier and blinder than ever before. The 2019 World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama, Japan will be Viktor’s last.

“About damn time,” Yura had grumbled when Viktor announced his retirement the day the Katsuki-Nikiforovs returned from their honeymoon.

“You are sure?” Yakov had asked, not because he doubted Viktor’s decision but because he doubted his resolve. Viktor had already retired once, after all. It lasted all of nine months.

Yuuri had been a warm, anchoring presence at Viktor’s side, his arm wrapped low around Viktor’s waist. There was a supportive smile in his eyes. Yes, Viktor was sure. He was almost thirty years old, happily married, with the most successful figure skating career in history carried proudly in his name. A long career as a coach and choreographer stretched out before him.

Viktor is sure, and he is not sad. There is nothing to be sad about. In fact, he wants desperately to fast-forward through the next month. He would be happy to skip to April, to jump right over the final competition of his career and all of the pressure that comes with it. He has enough gold, enough silver, enough winnings to last a lifetime.

But: it’s his final skate, and that means something. It’s exactly what he thought he avoided, the first time around when he dropped everything to move to Japan. It’s an ending, a beginning, a farewell, a tribute, a symbol of his legacy and a celebration of his accomplishments and a thousand other clichés rolled into one.

It’s— a lot. He doesn’t want to do it, but he wants it to be done, and done well.

So.

Steamed chicken breasts. Two of them, and a pile of steamed broccoli on the side, placed lovingly in front of him by his husband who has recently stopped hiding the concern on his face.

“ _Arigatou,”_ Viktor says, and it makes Yuuri smile before he sighs wistfully and bites into the chicken.

“Only a few more weeks, and then it’ll be katsudon.”

“I can’t wait,” Viktor replies, but he’s having trouble imagining it from where he sits now—the warmth of the Yu-topia dining room, the gentle humidity from the hot springs, the low table and light laughs and the delicious, deep-fried delicacy of Hiroko-san’s tonkatsu smothered in egg yolk. It usually feels so tangible, so close in his memory and his future, but right now it sits just barely out of reach.

It’s for the best, perhaps, because he needs to focus: Saitama, not Hasetsu.

On the couch after dinner, with Makkachin curled at their feet and the TV flickering on low across the room, Viktor massages the arches of Yuuri’s feet, the bend of his ankles, the rock-hard muscle of his thighs—and Yuuri melts, completely. Viktor discovered this about his husband during their first season together. Coaching and competing and living together had been a tough minefield to navigate the first time around, but they learned quickly enough how to take care of one another.

“Your turn,” Yuuri interrupts eventually, and they shift until Yuuri can bring his hands to Viktor’s shoulders and massage away the tension that has gathered there. “Vitya,” he sighs, running his thumb along Viktor’s shoulder blade. “Relax.”

“I’m relaxing,” he promises, and lets his muscles turn to jelly. Yuuri is not fooled.

“You’re still tense.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know.”

Makkachin whines and buries her wet nose against Viktor’s shin. Her greying fur tickles his leg, and he drops a hand down to pet her. “Good girl,” he tells her.

“Mm,” Yuuri hums. “Her check-up is tomorrow at twelve thirty.”

“Oh. Right.” Smack dead in the middle of Viktor’s on-ice practice time with Yakov.

“Nothing to worry about,” Yuuri reminds him, his fingers pressing into Viktor’s shoulders.

“I know.”

“I can take her if you want to st—”

“No, it’s okay. Yakov stays late at the rink, anyhow. I’m sure he won’t mind if I came in after.”

Yuuri’s fingers hesitate in the air above his husband’s skin. “Vitya…”

There’s a warning in his voice that Viktor has heard a thousand times. They have a deal, the two of them, the product of that first difficult March where Yuuri tried no fewer than twenty times to get Viktor to take a rest day and Viktor, being Viktor, waved him off each time with a smile. He’d overworked himself straight into a bout of flu that took him off the ice for a week.

Now, all Yuuri has to do is ask. He doesn’t do it often; he saves it, for when it gets bad. For a moment, Viktor thinks Yuuri will continue.

“...don’t let him keep you too late,” he finishes instead, though they both know that’s never Yakov’s doing.

“I’ll leave once I have the quad combination down.”

It’s a suitable compromise. Yuuri resumes his work on Viktor’s muscles, sliding one hand up the column of Viktor’s neck to the base of his head.

“You don’t need it,” Yuuri reminds him. “Your technical’s almost record breaking as it is.”

“ _Almost,_ ” Viktor echoes. “Almost. How else will I beat you?”

Yuuri chuckles. “Hm. Don’t count on it. My coach is having me add another crazy combination, too.”

“Darn. He’s always trying to outdo me.”

“Must be infuriating.”

“Inspiring, actually.”

From behind him, Viktor hears Yuuri yawn and feels the hand on the back of his neck falter. Viktor reaches back, takes Yuuri’s fingers in his own and presses them to his lips.

Kiss. “Go take a shower.” Kiss. “I’ll be in soon.”

Yuuri blinks. “The dishes—”

“You made dinner. I’ve got them.”

“You had such a long day—”

“Yuuri.”

And Yuuri studies him, studies him, before blinking and rising to his feet. “Okay.”

Conversations like this had spiralled into fights so many times in that first year. They both know better now.

Yuuri disappears into the bedroom, Makkachin padding after him, and Viktor flicks off the TV. The dishes aren’t too bad—a few pans, plates, utensils, glasses. The water comes out boiling hot, steam rising from the bin and filling his nostrils, but he doesn’t feel the burn on his skin as he expects. It’s so hot that it’s almost cold. His hands turn red. He lets the dishes dry in the rack.

Viktor flicks the lights out in the kitchen, the living room, and the hallway on his way back to their bedroom. The apartment feels different in the dark, cold matching the howling winter outside the windows. The hardwood is chilled beneath his bare feet and their bedroom empty but for Makkachin curled up near their pillows. She raises her head when Viktor appears in the doorway.

Viktor sits on the edge of the perfectly-made bed, feet on the floor, hands on his knees, and waits.

The door to the bathroom is shut, steam and a sliver of light peeking through below it.  He can hear Yuuri humming to himself, the repetitive melody of some Russian pop song that was playing at the supermarket yesterday… at least that’s Viktor’s best guess, since Yuuri has never been exactly pitch-perfect. Sometimes he hums wandering little melodies in Viktor’s ear while he falls asleep, and it reminds Viktor of how Hiroko-san sings while she fills onigiri and takes out the trash. Viktor hangs on every wayward note.

Still, though, tonight— tonight and for the past week there’s been something. In the way. He waits for the rush of warmth that usually fills him at Yuuri’s voice, at the thought of Hiroko-san’s smile and the bento she packs them for long days at the rink, at Makkachin’s soft, slow breathing behind him. But there’s something stuck. Something frozen, deep deep down, that won’t let him bend or stretch or swell with the love he usually feels so easily.

He knows this about ice: it is strong, hard, and inflexible. He can land on a single sharpened blade with seven hundred kilograms of pressure and barely nick the surface. If Viktor had to choose an armor he would pick ice every time and he wonders, sometimes, if that isn’t exactly what he’s done—what he does every March, whether he means to or not.

He didn’t mean to this time. He really didn’t, not this badly, because it hurts Yuuri, Viktor knows, to be shut out. Viktor _really_ didn’t mean to; he’s just not sure, at this point, what can be done but wait it out.

When the shower shuts off, Viktor realizes he hasn’t moved. A few minutes later, the door opens, and he still hasn’t moved; feet on the floor, hands on his knees, eyes staring distantly at a gleaming knob on the dresser by the door.

“Vitya,” Yuuri says from the edge of Viktor’s vision. There’s a white towel wrapped low around his hips and a pink flush in his cheeks and on his chest. Little droplets of water roll off the tips of his hair.

Their eyes meet for only a second before Yuuri moves forward, closer, until his belly button rests inches from Viktor’s nose. His skin smells fresh like his favorite yuzu body wash. He runs a hand down Viktor’s shoulder, touch feather-light.

“Vitya,” he says again, barely more than a begging whisper but it reaches down down down and somehow manages to graze that chunk of ice encasing Viktor’s chest and it’s—warm, for a moment, at the edges.

Viktor leans forward, his forehead pressed flush up against the skin of Yuuri’s stomach. It’s heady and heavy, the citrus scent on his skin and the radiating heat. Viktor’s neck bows, his shoulders curling forward and he slides downward, slowly, until his forehead comes to rest at the hollow of Yuuri’s hipbone.

The towel, heavy with water and half-heartedly tied, slips from Yuuri’s waist and falls to the floor. Yuuri lets it. Viktor closes his eyes, brings his hands up to curl around the backs of Yuuri’s thighs like anchors. He breathes, deeply, his shaky exhale blooming against the curve of Yuuri’s hip.

“Vitya,” Yuuri whispers yet again, and there are fingers in his hair, cupping the back of his head.

“Please,” Viktor breathes, and it means nothing. It means everything.

Yuuri’s hands are on Viktor’s now where they clutch at Yuuri’s sides; his fingers wrap circles around Viktor’s wrists and coax gently upward, upward, above Viktor’s bowed head to the toned skin at Yuuri’s stomach. There they meet, Viktor’s hands joined—held, cradled—up together in supplication for something he hadn’t realized he needed but—

Yuuri knows. Yuuri always knows. He coaxes Viktor, hands gentle and firm and joined between them, up off of the bed. Viktor stands, unfurling into his full height, and allows himself to look down into Yuuri’s eyes. It’s very nearly overwhelming, for a moment—the intensity, the determination, the careful caring love that lives there. It could knock him off his feet.

“Let me take care of you, Vitya?”

The words hit him like a blow, striking _deep deep deep_ and something cracks and Viktor shudders, sputters out shards of ice.

There aren’t— there aren’t words, for this. For how much he wants, no, needs what Yuuri is offering him. There are cracks in the ice now and he can feel the warmth peeking through. It’s dangerous and frightening and so, so much: everything he feels. Relinquishing it, letting it out after so carefully shutting it away in an instinctive attempt at control… He can’t do that on his own.

Control was what got him in this situation. He can see that now. He buries his head in the crook of Yuuri’s neck, grounds himself there— and lets go.

There is nothing in the universe, nothing at all, that can compare to Yuuri’s touch. Viktor has been here a thousand times, will be here a million more, and he sinks into the moment as easily as slipping into an onsen. In Yuuri’s arms he turns soft and pliant and forgets everything except his husband’s wandering, purposeful fingers that hook under the hem of Viktor’s shirt and peel it inch by inch from his skin. Talented fingers, Viktor thinks as they deftly unbutton and unzip his pants; he wants to bring them to his mouth and press kisses to the knuckles and tips and nail-beds.

He doesn’t, though, because Yuuri wants him to relax—to let go and trust him and let Yuuri do the work.

Yuuri bends down and taps sweetly at Viktor’s shins, cueing him to step out of the pants and underwear that have pooled around his ankles. They’re matching, now, with nothing but air between their bodies, standing together in their purest forms.

“You are so beautiful,” Yuuri whispers, his thumb grazing Viktor’s collarbone; Viktor shivers with want. _So are you,_ he wants to say, but he can barely string words together in his head, let alone out loud. Yuuri cups the side of Viktor’s neck and any space between them disappears in a flash of heat—Yuuri’s lips, those are Yuuri’s lips on Viktor’s, sugar-sweet and coaxing and all-consuming.

There is nothing, in the entire universe, _but this._

Yuuri guides them to the bed, shuffling back inch by inch until his knees buckle against the mattress and they sink down together, Viktor steady in Yuuri’s arms and pulled half on his lap. Up near the pillows, Makkachin cracks one eye before falling back asleep.

“Okay?” Yuuri asks, brushing Viktor’s bangs behind his ear.

“Yes, please, Yuuri,” Viktor manages, knowing Yuuri hears everything he means but cannot say.

Yuuri’s cheeks flush red and his eyes burn with intense focus. “Get comfortable,” he encourages, sitting back and pulling his hands away. “However you want this, Vitya, that’s what we’ll do.”

Viktor is halfway there already—without a second thought, he drapes himself across Yuuri’s lap like a blanket and exhales a long, deep sigh into the duvet. It warms against his cheek. He can feel Yuuri shifting underneath him, the muscles of his thighs— _god, those thighs—_ rippling against Viktor’s bare stomach, and the beginnings of arousal nudging the fleshy part of Viktor’s side. A jolt of pleasure surges through his body, knowing how much Yuuri wants this, too.

The back of Yuuri’s left hand brushes over Viktor’s jaw, the back of his neck, and plays with the hair at the base of Viktor’s scalp. “Comfortable?” he checks, just as his free right hand comes to rest at the very base of Viktor’s spine. Every hair on Viktor’s body stands at attention.

“ _Yes,”_ he gasps, eyelids fluttering in anticipation.

Yuuri’s right hand drifts down, down, cupping the curve of Viktor’s ass and warming the skin there with his palm. He delivers a light tap, so light it’s barely there.

“Tell me if you want to stop,” Yuuri reminds him. No matter how many times they do this, he always reminds him.

In three years, Viktor has never needed to stop him; Yuuri always knows, somehow. He knows Viktor’s body better than he knows his own: the changing map of bruises on his feet, the tension in his shoulders, the ticklish patches of skin behind his knees. More than anything, though, Yuuri knows how to _touch_ him, from the lightest of kisses to the deepest of strokes. Yuuri touches Viktor like he skates on the ice—masterfully, making music with every caress of the blades, every extension of his fingers, every wink and air-kiss and half-lidded smile. Yuuri makes the music but he makes Viktor _sing_ like no one ever has, ever will, ever could.

The first stroke knocks every bit of air from Viktor’s lungs and he forgets, for a moment, to breathe in any more. The sting Yuuri’s hand leaves behind is not pain. Between the falls he’s taken on the ice and that time when he was eighteen and sprained his ACL bad enough for surgery, Viktor is well acquainted with pain.

This isn’t it. This is— pleasure, it’s pleasure with an edge that grounds him fiercely in the moment and leaves him aching and wanting. The first few times they tried this, Yuuri had been so timid that Viktor had begged for more until his voice went hoarse. Years later, they know the limits and they know each other. Every sensation Yuuri visits on Viktor’s body is carefully calculated with conscious self-control and exquisite attention to detail.

Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforov is a very easy man to trust.

The palm of his hand strikes Viktor again, slightly heavier this time, and a sharp heat blossoms on Viktor’s skin. He breathes with it this time, leaning into the touch, and whimpers softly against the mattress. Yuuri’s left hand, still resting against the back of Viktor’s head, slides forward to stroke his flushed cheek.

“So beautiful,” Yuuri whispers and Viktor cranes his neck up for a second, longing to meet Yuuri’s eyes. They’re so lovely and rich and shining that they make Viktor tremble.

Another stroke, harder, and Viktor’s head falls back to the mattress.

Another, and he bucks his hips back to meet Yuuri’s hand.

Another, and he _keens._

“ _Yuuri,”_ he cries, and god, he vaguely remembers being cold, before this began. He remembers feeling frozen deep deep down, trapped in a block of unyielding ice where he could train and train and nothing he loved could reach him. It was only minutes ago, he remembers.

But somewhere between then and now he melted, into Yuuri’s arms and touch and control and the mattress they share together. He’s Yuuri’s, completely, and Yuuri will take care of him.

Now, far from frozen, he is hot—his cheeks flushed against the mattress, his arousal against Yuuri’s thighs, his ass against Yuuri’s hand. And in his chest a fire burns, wanting more more more.

“Please,” he begs, “Yuuri, please.”

That’s all he has to say, and Yuuri knows. The next strokes come harder, against different patches of skin, and each one somehow grounds Viktor further in the moment while elevating him higher and higher. _Yuuri,_ his mind sings, _Yuuriyuuriyuuri_ as the back of one hand strokes down the side of his neck, warm and inviting and comforting, while the other slaps and strokes and soothes in equal measure. It’s driving Viktor out of his mind. The duvet bunches in his fist only inches from his head and he grinds down against Yuuri’s leg.

“So impatient,” Yuuri teases, and Viktor can hear the smile on his husband’s lips.

“Please,” Viktor croaks.

“Please what?”

“More. Harder. _Please."_

Yuuri hums, ducking his head down and sealing his lips against Viktor’s shoulder blade. He leaves behind a soft, reverent kiss before doing exactly as Viktor asked.

Viktor lets out a strangled moan at the impact. “H-harder,” he chokes and seconds later his eyes roll back in his head. Three strikes, this time, in quick succession, the sharp edge never quite subsiding before the next brought it back anew, again and again.

Three years of this, three years of playful experimentation and testing their limits and it has never _ever_ felt like this. Viktor is flying, soaring, sinking, burning from the inside out and outside in.

“ _Har—”_ he begins, and cuts himself off with a moan as the cutting heat erupts anew. There’s a hand in his hair again, petting and soothing and smoothing, and a hiccup in the rhythm before Yuuri continues. Viktor doesn’t know if Yuuri listened to his request—at this point, with his body awash in sensation, Viktor can hardly tell one moment, one breath, one strike from another. He arches his back, buries his face in the comforter, and lets it all wash over him.

He’s not sure exactly when it changes.

During Viktor’s nine months in Hasetsu, he had spent almost every evening bathing in the onsen. Toshiya-san had warned him from the beginning not to stay too long in the water, but one evening, after a particularly long day at the rink that left him chilled to the bone, Viktor had decided he wanted to stay in longer. The water had felt so good, after all, enveloping him like a hug and melting the ice from his veins.

It was amazing how quickly something so warm and pleasurable could become so overwhelmingly, suffocatingly hot that he felt his blood might boil. After thirty minutes he had to get out and spent the hour afterward trying to cool and rehydrate his overheated body.

One moment Viktor is awash with pleasure, floating weightless with every nerve ending screaming out for more; the next, he feels like he’s drowning in it, sinking, like he can’t take in air, like his skin is on fire and it just keeps coming.

It’s as rattling and painful as falling out of a jump, those times when he under-rotates and his skate slips out from under him and his palms get scraped and torn and bloody. The impact jostles every bone in his body and leaves him seeing stars. How many times has he wiped out like that in the past week, trying to get that last-minute quad-quad combination? How many scrapes and bruises had he incurred and ignored, numb and tucked away behind his armor of ice? He feels them all now, every single one of them, every bit of everything painful that his body had withstood when he worked it into the ground—and then, on top of that, every unpleasant and anxious and downright terrifying thought about his final skate that he’d refused to process or even consider.

It keeps coming, beating down on him like the waterfall at the temple in Hasetsu, intense and overwhelming and relentless. He gasps, shudders, trembles with the impact.

“—ya? Vitya?” The voice reaches him through the din, muted and distant but there nonetheless. “Viktor, oh my god, _Viktor._ ”

There are hands all over him, on the small of his back and curve of his neck and the fire-hot skin of his forehead, searching desperately for something. With his eyes squeezed shut he can’t see a thing and he feels water leaking from the corners. Beneath his cheek, the duvet is wet. He clings tightly to the fabric.

“ _Viktor…”_

Then everything is moving, those hands lifting his hips, the soft steadiness beneath him, slick with both of their abandoned arousal, pulling out and sliding away. Viktor lays face down on the mattress, feeling utterly naked in a way he never has before.

But then— then. An arm slides beneath his chest, another over his shoulders and he is _surrounded,_ so securely and completely that his fingers uncurl from their fists, release the comforter, and press flush against a muscled chest. Viktor takes a deep, shuddering breath, and it smells like sex and Japanese citrus.

He opens his eyes and sees Yuuri looking back at him, eyes wide and tearful and horrendously afraid.

There’s nothing to do then but exhale, let every bit of strength collapse, and let out the bone-wracking sob that has been building in his chest for weeks of frozen, self-imposed loneliness. Yuuri’s trembling palm cups Viktor’s cheek, his thumb brushing over Viktor’s lips and jaw and wiping the tears that he can’t seem to stop.

Viktor tries to take another breath but it catches somewhere in his throat and the sound it makes is _horrible._ Yuuri’s gaze makes it worse. Viktor ducks his head and buries his face in the crook of Yuuri’s neck and tries to catch his breath.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Yuuri croaks, hugging Viktor as close as possible. His hands rub up and down Viktor’s spine, over his shoulder blades, everywhere he can touch without straying down to Viktor’s ass. “I’m sorry, I’m _so sorry…”_

That kind of desperation, of _devastation_ does not belong in Yuuri’s voice. It’s wrong. “No,” Viktor gasps out, forcing his lungs and vocal chords to listen to him. “Don’t, not, it’s n-not—” He sucks in a breath. “Yuuri. I’m, I…”

“Shh. It’s okay. Just breathe.”

It’s so familiar, but backwards. How many times has Viktor said those exact words to Yuuri, mid-panic attack?

The skin of Yuuri’s neck is delicate and warm and sweet-smelling. It pulses beneath Viktor’s cheek, racing too fast but steady like a metronome, and Viktor thinks he could stay here, live here, build a home here. Yuuri leans down, presses a kiss to Viktor’s scalp, and the heat of his mouth lingers.

“I’m okay,” Viktor says, perhaps a bit prematurely but the words come out steady nonetheless.

Viktor feels Yuuri’s pulse begin to slow and Viktor’s heartbeat calms alongside. Neither of them move an inch save for Yuuri’s hands and the comforting circles they trace on Viktor’s back. It’s Viktor’s favorite place on earth, tucked entirely into Yuuri’s body with Yuuri’s arms steady around him. He can feel Yuuri’s chest inflating, deflating in a steady pattern and deepens his own breaths to match.

The weight on the mattress shifts and a whine startles them from somewhere near their feet. Makkachin’s wet nose tickles their interlocked legs. She nudges their ankles.

“It’s okay, girl,” Yuuri whispers, pulling one arm away from Viktor and leaning to scratch under her chin reassuringly. Viktor doesn’t mind.

Makkachin whines again, but settles back down next to them and rests her head on her paws.

“We should get up,” Yuuri nudges. “You’re burning up. I’ll draw you a cool bath.”

“Us.”

“Hm?”

“Draw _us_ a bath.”

Yuuri smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes. Of course.”

“Yuuri—”

“Soon. Soon, just not…” He shakes his head. “Bath, okay?”

“Okay.” Viktor’s own voice sounds hollow to his ears.

They untangle their limbs easily like they have so many times before, and Viktor follows Yuuri into the bathroom. Waiting together for the bathtub to fill creates a long and charged silence, but it’s better than lying alone on their bed next to the stain he left on the comforter.

In the cold air of the bathroom, watching the waterline creep toward the top of the tub, Viktor starts to feel keenly the burn on his ass. Yuuri shuts off the tap and steps in first. With the adrenaline and endorphins gone from Viktor’s system, his raw skin smarts as he settles into the cool water.

Yuuri settles in against the side of the bathtub, and Viktor with his back against Yuuri. The crook of Yuuri’s arm, just below his shoulder, makes a good pillow, his head just above the water’s surface.

“Mm. Nice,” Viktor praises, and it is. It is nice. But Yuuri is not relaxed.

“I don’t know what to say, Vitya,” Yuuri admits, his voice so soft that Viktor might not have heard it, had his ear not been mere centimeters from Yuuri’s lips.

Viktor opens his mouth, closes, opens, closes it again.

“I don’t either.”

“I’m _so_ sorry, I should have noticed—”

“No.” Viktor snaps his head to the side, twisting around to look his husband square in the eyes. “No, Yuuri, don’t… don’t do that.”

“It’s true.”

“You couldn’t have known. That’s not your responsibility.”

“Yes it _is._ When we… do that, it is exactly my responsibility to notice. I wasn’t paying close enough attention, I—”

“Yuuri.” Viktor searches under the water for Yuuri’s hand, grasping it tight in both of his own and holding it to his chest. “It happened so fast. Too fast, for you to have…” Viktor sighs. “It’s not like I said stop.”

Yuuri’s mouth curls into a frown. He absently twists Viktor’s wedding ring around his finger. “Why didn’t you?”

The question shouldn’t catch Viktor off guard, but it does. He’s not sure he has an answer. “It happened so fast,” he repeats.

“ _What_ happened?

“I don’t know,” Viktor huffs. “One moment it was good, _so, so good,_ then suddenly it was just…”

“Too much?”

“Yes, but— not what you did. You didn’t do anything wrong. Everything just hit at once, I think.”

“Everything,” Yuuri echoes, sounding dazed. “The past few weeks?” he guesses.

“Yes.”

Viktor’s ring twirls around and around his finger. It’s his favorite of Yuuri’s numerous nervous habits.

“And now?”

Viktor frowns. “Now?”

“Do you still feel overwhelmed?”

A genuine smile tugs at Viktor’s lips. He cranes his neck back to press them to Yuuri’s jaw. “I’m feeling much better, actually.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yuuri—”

“I hate that I hurt you,” he bursts, the words echoing through the tiled bathroom. “I was trying to take care of you, and I did the exact opposite.”

 _Is that what you think?_ Viktor wonders, with no real amount of surprise. Yuuri could find a way to blame himself for anything if he tried hard enough. And this…

“You didn’t hurt me. Not really. Sometimes things just happen. I’m okay.”

Yuuri pulls him tighter to his chest, and it’s a comforting kind of pressure. They stay like that for a few minutes in silence, Viktor’s head against Yuuri’s shoulder, his back against Yuuri’s chest, his hips wedged between Yuuri’s spread knees. The water feels warmer than it did when he first stepped in with flushed, smarting skin.

He is not burning hot anymore, but he’s thankfully not cold either. He doesn’t think he could have taken that—if the ice flooded back into his veins just as the endorphins fled, leaving his heart frozen off as it had been every day for the past few weeks. That would have been the worst kind of torture, to get a taste of warmth and pleasure and the love that was rightfully his only to have it fade away into numbness as soon as he came down from the high.

Of course, though, not being numb means feeling everything he’d been trying to shove away in the first place.

“I don’t want to do this.”

Yuuri’s body jerks under his, breath catching, but he calms quickly again as understanding dawns. “Ah. Worlds?”

Just the word is enough to make Viktor’s stomach coil. “I want it to be April. I want to be in Hasetsu. To soak in the onsen and go on runs with Makkachin on the beach, and make katsudon with your mother and bury my face in your pillow while we have sex so your family won’t hear.”

Yuuri barks a laugh. “You _want_ to worry about my parents overhearing us?”

“No!” Viktor protests immediately. “But… maybe a little bit? I love your family, Yuuri.”

“Our family.”

Viktor’s heart slams against his ribcage. “Ours.” He smiles. “Right.”

“And you have family here, too.”

He nods. “At the rink.”

“Yes.”

Viktor drags his fingers along the surface of the water, leaving tiny little waves in their wake. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Why not?”

“I’m retiring.”

“So?”

“The last time Yakov wasn’t my coach, he ignored me for eight months.” Viktor had racked up hundreds of dollars on his phone plan in voicemails for a man who probably deleted them on the spot. Even though he never answered, Viktor couldn’t help himself.

“That was different.”

Viktor shrugs. “Was it?” Yuuri runs his hands down Viktor’s arms, starting at his shoulders and ending with their fingers intertwined. “I know I treated him poorly, just up and leaving like that, but he would hardly even _look at me.”_

“Vitya,” Yuuri begins, and it sounds like he’s scolding a child. Viktor knows that voice. Loves that voice, even though what follows is usually a tough pill to swallow. “Do you really think your relationship with Yakov hasn’t grown since then?”

Viktor blinks. Processes. Blinks again.

“He’s not going to forget you exist just because he’s not responsible for you anymore. Or because he doesn’t see you everyday.”

“Well I suppose I’ll be around the rink a lot, since I’m still your coach, and—”

 _“Vitya.”_ That voice again. Yuuri’s hand pulls away from Viktor’s and presses softly beneath Viktor’s chin instead, inclining his head backward until their eyes met. Yuuri strokes his jaw. “You could decide to…” he frowns, thinks and continues, “...to go to France and become a pastry chef, and you would still have a family here.”

A grin stretches across Viktor’s face. “You think I could be a good pastry chef?”

“Of course.” The kiss Yuuri presses to Viktor’s lips is honey-sweet. “I don’t think all this is about Yakov, though.”

Ah, Yuuri. Viktor is always so bare, to him.

Viktor sighs, twisting his whole body around to sit facing his husband. More of his body is out of the water this way, and he shivers. “I know.”

“What’s going on, Vitya?”

“I don’t know.”

“Vitya…”

“You remember what I told you a few years ago? About the winter, how sometimes I feel…”

“Numb?” Yuuri’s fingers trail circles over Viktor’s chest, the little platinum-blonde hairs that hardly anyone ever notices. “Yes. I remember. You have been feeling numb for weeks.”

He knew. Of course he knew. Viktor’s shoulders deflate. “I think I do it on purpose.”

Yuuri blinks. “Yeah?”

“So I can focus. Be in control.”

Yuuri nods. “By shutting everything else out.”

Viktor had never felt so understood until he met Yuuri Katsuki. They are different people, with different battles and strengths and faults, but Yuuri always listens and he always _gets it,_ even when Viktor barely gets it himself.

“It was so much worse this time,” Viktor admits, voice barely there. “And I don’t know how to _not.”_

“What about now?”

It’s a good question, a valid question. Viktor answers it happily and truthfully. “I’m here. All of me. With you.” He shrugs. “What you—we—did, me giving you control… it helped.”

“Until it didn’t.”

“I just got overwhelmed. But it helped.” Proof of his words is easy to come by—the way his chest swells easily with love as his gaze traces over the curve of Yuuri’s lips; the way his hair stands on end and his skin dots with goosebumps as Yuuri runs his nails lightly down the length of Viktor’s forearm. It helped, it fixed him, but—

“I’m just worried I will wake up tomorrow numb again.”

There’s something like heartbreak in Yuuri’s eyes, but it quickly solidifies into a familiar, grounded resolve. “If that happens, we’ll just fix it again.”

“Spank it better?”

Yuuri laughs despite himself. “Maybe not for a while. We’ll figure something else out.”

“And the next day? If it happens again?”

Yuuri tucks an errant strand of hair behind Viktor’s ear. “I’m not going to just leave you alone. We’ll do what we have to do. It’s only a few more weeks.”

Viktor hugs his arms around his midsection. “I don’t want to keep doing this. It…” he huffs. “It sucks.”

“I know,” Yuuri chuckles dryly. “Trust me, I know. I’m probably the least qualified person to help with this.” He reaches out and tugs on Viktor’s arms, pulling them from their crossed, closed-off position and joining their hands between them. “Maybe you should talk to Irina.”

Viktor would be lying if he said he hadn’t considered it. Yakov has always encouraged his skaters to work with her, just as he would encourage them to work with a nutritionist or a physical therapist. Still, Viktor hadn’t had a session with her in years, since that first winter when he struggled through coaching and competing at the same time, though he’s waited outside her office for Yuuri to finish his sessions more times than he can count.

“Maybe I should,” he muses. “But it’s only a few more weeks and this is the last time I’ll even…” He trails off. “I don’t want to waste her time.”

“Isn’t that exactly what I said when you tried to get me to see her last year?”

“That was different.”

“It wasn’t different, it was just the Olympics. You’re under so much pressure, Vitya. If a few hours with her can help you end your career the way _you_ want to end it, then it’s worth it.”

Yuuri and Viktor have a deal: if either of them asks the other to take a rest day, they have to listen. They don’t have a deal about this, but Viktor thinks it ought to transfer. Just like asking for a rest day, Yuuri would not ask Viktor to see a professional unless he truly thought Viktor needed it, and Yuuri can usually see Viktor more clearly than Viktor has ever seen himself.

“I will call her tomorrow, while I’m at the vet with Makkachin.”

Yuuri’s shoulders sag with relief. How long has Viktor been making him worry? A sharp pang of guilt stabs through Viktor’s chest, but subsides when Yuuri leans forward to join Viktor’s lips with his.

“Thank you,” Yuuri whispers into Viktor’s mouth.

Viktor breathes in his words and breathes out, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

They kiss and kiss and it’s lovely, but the water is cold. Now, with his body temperature back under control, it makes Viktor shiver.

“Let’s get out,” he prompts, and they stand up together. Yuuri wraps Viktor in a towel and Viktor grabs a new one from the cabinet below the sink for Yuuri—his original is still lying crumpled on the bedroom floor.

“Bed?” Yuuri suggests, and Viktor nods without hesitation.

Warm under the covers, Makkachin curled up at their feet, they let their hands wander each other’s bodies and bring pleasure the way they hadn’t managed earlier. It’s nothing fancy, nothing particularly adventurous, and they’re both too tired for anything more than their hands but Yuuri knows Viktor and Viktor knows Yuuri and that’s all they really need.

In the middle, Yuuri pulls away, rolls over, and grabs a bottle of lotion from the bedside table. He makes Viktor lie flat on his stomach and massages it onto the tender skin of his backside, trailing kisses down the knobs of Viktor’s spine as he goes. He’s a marvelous tease, always has been, but it’s wonderful and cathartic and _Yuuri_ and Viktor loves every. Single. Second.

They come together, breathless, tangled in their sheets and flushed and exhausted. They fall asleep like that, intertwined from head to toe, every bit of themselves bare for each other. For the first time in weeks, Viktor doesn’t think about Worlds, doesn’t think about retirement, and doesn’t even think of April in Hasetsu.

He holds his husband, closes his eyes, and simply lets himself feel.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought <3 
> 
> come talk to me on tumblr at [stammiviktor](https://stammiviktor.tumblr.com/)


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